'90s era PC recommendation.
Hi, Does anyone have any recommendations for a '90s era PC that has PCI and ISA slots? Ideally I'd like to have EISA slots too. — At least I think that's what I want. I'm developing an itch to play with older networking equipment, Token Ring, FDDI, etc. and I suspect that a machine running '98 / NT 4, or a Unix / Linux from the late '90s would be a good candidate to mess with things. Obviously I'll need two devices to communicate. I may end up looking for an older Cisco router that supports the various interface types. Years ago I had a Compaq desktop that had PCI and EISA slots. I'm trying to re-acquire it from the friend that it went to. Does anyone have any Pro Tips on things to look for or avoid? — One of the worries that I have about the aforementioned Compaq is that it used proprietary components (the keyboard connector looked like a PowerBook SCSI connector) that would be hard to replace if (read: when) a problem develops. I would greatly appreciate any tips / tricks / things to avoid. Thank you in advance. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: Looking for TI 990/12 hardware reference manual ????
On Wed, 2 May 2018 18:56:42 + (UTC) Jerry Wright via cctalk wrote: > I have a later TI 990/12 system with a dead power supply. Looking > drawings or schematics andI believe there in the hardware reference > manual. The one manual on bitsavers under 990/10shows a older type > of power supply. Mine is basically all on 1 board. The chassis is > a 990 A13 > > Thanks, Jerry > I went over to my storage today, and thought I'd found the box it was in since it had another 990 manual on top, but it turns out it was otherwise a box of TI-99 stuff. ROM, GROM, DSR sources, product manuals, specifications, etc. Interesting but not what you're looking for. I'll take another crack at it later today if I get this guy's overheating van fixed before dark. later, jbdigriz
Re: Old core memory system.
On 05/05/2018 11:50 AM, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote: On 05/05/2018 04:57 AM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: It could be flight control related since it is aviation museum that currently have it. Hmm, 'stack heater' caught my eye... I'm not particularly familiar with core setups, but I didn't think that was a common thing, suggesting the possibility of a cold environment - immediate thought on the back of that was something on a plane. Lots of early core memory systems had heated core stacks. It was a lot simpler to heat the stack to a known temperature than to cool it. Eventually, they figured out that you could put a thermistor in the stack and adjust the half-select currents to follow the temperature characteristic. But, I think IBM 1620, 709x and 360/30, 360/40, etc had heated stacks. I think the 360/50 had a heated local store, but not the main store. The picture looked just a little big/heavy for flight gear, but maybe something like the E3 might have gear like that in the radar data processor. Jon
Re: Old core memory system.
Fabri-tek was a common supplier for core memory. Many companies used their memories. Fabri-tek Instruments became Nicolet Instruments in 1971. I'm not sure one could tell what machine it was used for. It was a common memory system. They did make a lot of memories for military use. Dwight From: cctalk on behalf of Bob Smith via cctalk Sent: Saturday, May 5, 2018 12:36:07 PM To: Chuck Guzis; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Old core memory system. SDS built a 24 bit system with Parity too, the CDC 924 was 24bit, there were a few others and I believe but can not recall for sure, a navy 24 bit maybe done by ERA. bb On Sat, May 5, 2018 at 2:32 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 05/05/2018 10:23 AM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote: >> Core temp was a big issue even in commercial environments. You didn't see >> it temp but you would see core [driver] current. > > The early IBM 7000 series (7070, 7080, 7090) kept core in a > temperature-regulated oil bath. Later versions used pre-heated air > (e.g. 7094 core). > > On the CDC 7600, hitting the same area of care repeatedly could cause it > to overheat and throw parity errors. Circuitry to detect this would > slow-down repeated accesses. > > That was for CM. I seem to recall someone telling me that there was no > such provision in PP core and a "jump to self" was sufficient to throw > an error--but that may be a shaggy-dog story. > > --Chuck
list server maintenance
Back up, testing.
Re: Old core memory system.
> On May 5, 2018, at 2:32 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk > wrote: > > On 05/05/2018 10:23 AM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote: >> Core temp was a big issue even in commercial environments. You didn't see >> it temp but you would see core [driver] current. > > The early IBM 7000 series (7070, 7080, 7090) kept core in a > temperature-regulated oil bath. Later versions used pre-heated air > (e.g. 7094 core). > > On the CDC 7600, hitting the same area of care repeatedly could cause it > to overheat and throw parity errors. Circuitry to detect this would > slow-down repeated accesses. > > That was for CM. I seem to recall someone telling me that there was no > such provision in PP core and a "jump to self" was sufficient to throw > an error--but that may be a shaggy-dog story. The IBM 1620 had a core heater; I remember having to wait for core to warm up after turning the machine on before it would start. One of the old PDP-11 diagnostics is the "core heating test". The description said it would hammer a region of memory (physical area) to get it to warm up, to see if there was enough margin for memory to remain reliable. On CDC memory: The 6000 series PPs always access memory every cycle. Whenever it doesn'thave anything better to do, the control logic uses the P register (program counter) for address. So there is no way in a PP to make memory work any harder; it's always a cycle every microsecond (memory running flat out) no matter what. I'm not positive the 7000 series works the same, but it would seem plausible that it does. CM, on the other hand, is referenced only when requested. So CM is normally working less than PP memory. Parity? I know the 170 series had parity, didn't think the 7600 did. The 6000 series does not (except for ECS). "Parity is for farmers" -- Seymour Cray. paul
Re: '90s era PC recommendation.
On 05/06/2018 11:18 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > Does anyone have any recommendations for a '90s era PC that has PCI and > ISA slots? Ideally I'd like to have EISA slots too. — At least I > think that's what I want. Depends on your CPU needs, but if you're willing to settle for P2/P3 era, anything using the Intel i440BX or GX generally has very good ISA support. If you want to go earlier than that (90s covers a lot of ground), a 486 or P1 or SS7 board might also be a possibility. I like the Supermicro and Advantech boards, but YMMV. --Chuck
Re: list server maintenance
\o/ This is a test, designed to provoke a funny response \o/ 2018-05-06 19:32 GMT-03:00 Jay West via cctalk : > Back up, testing. > >
Re: list server maintenance
lol On Sun, May 6, 2018 at 7:39 PM, Alexandre Souza via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > \o/ This is a test, designed to provoke a funny response \o/ > > 2018-05-06 19:32 GMT-03:00 Jay West via cctalk : > > > Back up, testing. > > > > >
Re: '90s era PC recommendation.
On 05/06/2018 04:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > Depends on your CPU needs, but if you're willing to settle for P2/P3 era, > anything using the Intel i440BX or GX generally has very good ISA support. Well, to be honest, I don't have any real need beyond enough to run the OS, a basic editor (preferably something more user friendly than ed(lin)) and run a networking stack. I /might/ consider playing some old DOS / Windows 3x / Windows 9x based games, nothing fancy. (Yoda Stories is the most likely candidate.) > If you want to go earlier than that (90s covers a lot of ground), a 486 > or P1 or SS7 board might also be a possibility. Ya. I'm thinking more in the P I / II / III range. I've long had a soft spot for the Pentium Pro. I wonder what those machines are going for these days. — A LONG time ago I saw an advertisement for a system that could accept six Pentium Pros. — This could turn out to be dangerous. I've got to say, I don't recognize SS7 as a CPU type. In fact, SS7 means Signaling System 7 to me. Different genera, but possibly the proper time frame. > I like the Supermicro and Advantech boards, but YMMV. ACK I'm fond of Supermicro machines too. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: '90s era PC recommendation.
On 05/06/2018 07:45 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > I've got to say, I don't recognize SS7 as a CPU type. In fact, SS7 > means Signaling System 7 to me. Different genera, but possibly the > proper time frame. SS7 = Super Socket 7. P1 Socket 7 with extras: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Socket_7 Faster AMD P1-era CPUs. For example, K6-II and K6-III. Competes well with P2 family. PPros have been ruthlessly raided by the gold scrappers. So not cheap for what you get. -- --Chuck
Re: '90s era PC recommendation.
On Sun, May 6, 2018 at 10:45 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 05/06/2018 04:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > Depends on your CPU needs, but if you're willing to settle for P2/P3 > era, > > anything using the Intel i440BX or GX generally has very good ISA > support. > > Well, to be honest, I don't have any real need beyond enough to run the > OS, a basic editor (preferably something more user friendly than > ed(lin)) and run a networking stack. > > I /might/ consider playing some old DOS / Windows 3x / Windows 9x based > games, nothing fancy. (Yoda Stories is the most likely candidate.) > > > If you want to go earlier than that (90s covers a lot of ground), a 486 > > or P1 or SS7 board might also be a possibility. > > Ya. > > I'm thinking more in the P I / II / III range. > > I think I'd rather have a NeXT if I had an unlimited budget and it was say 1993, but that's also when Pentiums came out and changed everything. I have set aside a few intel machines from the 90's. I really like the quality of the Dell Dimension 466V. Bill
Re: '90s era PC recommendation.
On 05/06/2018 09:01 PM, Bill Degnan wrote: > I think I'd rather have a NeXT if I had an unlimited budget and it was > say 1993, but that's also when Pentiums came out and changed everything. I have a lot of respect for NeXT machines. I think I'd like to own one some day. But I think I'm going to stick with x86 to scratch this itch. > I have set aside a few intel machines from the 90's. I really like the > quality of the Dell Dimension 466V. I had a non-trivial number of machines that would fit the bill before I moved. Quite a bit of the network equipment too. But I moved ~1000 miles and a LOT of things didn't make the move. :-( -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: '90s era PC recommendation.
On 05/06/2018 09:00 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > SS7 = Super Socket 7. P1 Socket 7 with extras: Ah. I wondered if it was Super Socket, but I'd (obviously) forgotten. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Socket_7 > > Faster AMD P1-era CPUs. For example, K6-II and K6-III. Competes well > with P2 family. I remember my AMD K6-II fondly. > PPros have been ruthlessly raided by the gold scrappers. So not cheap > for what you get. I noticed the prices for machines were not cheap on eBay and there were a number of people selling the CPUs on scales or in big batches. I'm guessing that's why. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
